WE SUPPORT SHELTER ORGANIZATIONS, especially the Ottawa
Humane Society(where Bobbi adopted Terzo
in October, 2006), the
Aylmer SPCA(where Bobbi adopted Q.T.
Penny in 2015), as well as many others. See the Fan
Club page for all the links.

The World Wide Fund says
populations of more than 4,000 mammal, bird, fish, reptile and
amphibian species declined 60% between 1970 and 2014. The report
blames deforestation, pollution and climate change caused by humans
for the rapid wildlife declines.

The ASPCA was founded in
1866. It was the first animal welfare organization in the Americas.
Canada's first SPCA was established in 1869 in Montreal.

Canada's Animal Cruelty Act
dates back to 1892. But it's never been revised.

The first zoo in the U.S.
was established in Philadelphia.

Berlins Zoologischer
Garten is the largest zoo in the world both in terms of number of
species (1,500) and animal population (14,000). Germany boasts more
than 400 registered zoos.

A recent study analyzed the brains
of dogs as they listened to human speech. It revealed that dogs
understand both the meaning of words and the intonation used to
speak them. They are able
to match hundreds of objects to words and learn elements of grammar,
and processed familiar words regardless of intonation, using the left
hemisphere, just like humans. Tone, or the emotion behind the word,
on the other hand, was analyzed in the auditory regions of the right
hemisphere  just as it is in people.

Dalmatians are the official
firehouse dog because, in the 1700's, they would run alongside
horse-drawn carriages keeping pace, even at full sprint, and protect
the horses from other dogs or animals that could spook them.

Most scientists now accept
that animals have distinct personalities, traits that endure over
time and differ between individuals of a species. Researchers have
found evidence of personality in practically every species
theyve examined, including sea anemones and insects.

In most
mammal species, the cortex accounts for between 10 percent and 40
percent of brain size. In primates, it accounts for more than 50
percent, and in humans for as much as 80 percent. Humans are
exceptional for the sheer number of their cortical neurons. They have
about fifteen billion, or more than twice as many as chimpanzees
(with about six billion). Whales and
elephants, the next in line after humans on the most-cortical-neurons
list, have about ten billion cortical neurons, but they have smaller
brains than chimps relative to body size. Large brains
mean that primates are wizards at acquiring, storing, and using
information about their surroundings.It has long been understood that
some animals can teach their peers to perform new tasks. But the most
famous examples involve primates or birds like ravens: Japanese
macaques show other monkeys how to wash sweet potatoes in streams. A
certain group of chimps knows to fish for insects by prodding termite
mounds with sticks, nibbled into brushes for maximum scoopage. But new
research suggests that bees are also capable of intricate form of
communication, and can teach these to other bees. They have something
called a waggle dance, with which they signal the location of nearby
food. Every 75 milliseconds a waggle lasts, roughly speaking,
indicates to other honeybees that a nectar source is an additional
330 feet further from the colony. In recent experiements, bees were
taught how to pull a string to reach a sugar-filled flower
substitute, and then they taught this to other bees.

The
BBC Earth/PBS series Animals with Cameras, a clever female chimp who
wanted clean the mud from her hands, determinedly climbed a tree to
visit a water source known to her and washed her dirty hands. Cameras
also captured other chimps using leaves to brush their teeth and to
weave into a comfy place to relax.

An incredibly clever
chimpanzee at the Zoological Wildlife Foundation in Miami used a
smartphone to watch a video on Instagram from a few days before
when the
chimp and caretaker Mike Holston were horsing around. The chimp not
only watched that specific clip but also exited out of the video,
scrolled and clicked through to other images.

Monkeys can understand written
numbers and can even count. They can also understand basic parts of
arithmetic and even, in rare cases, multiplication.

Paternal care, where
fathers care for their children, is rare among mammals. Humans fall
into that category, along with species like mice and lions. There are
also a number of South American monkey species where males take on
equal or greater childcare burdens than females. But these species
are the exceptions, not the rule. Among
mountain
gorillas, found in the mountains of Rwanda, Uganda, and the
Democratic Republic of Congo, some of the strongest social bonds are
between adult males and infants, even when the infants
arent the males own offspring. From the time that young
gorillas are old enough to move away from their mothers, they follow
males everywhere. Males, in turn, are extremely tolerant. Some
regularly hold, play with, groom, and let infants sleep in their
nests with them.

Craig Saffoe,
curator of great cats at Smithsonians National Zoo in
Washington, says Its always a matriarch who actually leads a
lion pride. Although male lions appear much bigger and more
aggressive, females are more dominant. They do the important
decision-making, are in charge of the majority of hunting and
cub-raising, and also have to protect their territory against other
intruding females and decide when to let in new males. In a typical African
pride, there are three to six adult females. Most daughters are
recruited to stay with their mothers pride until they die, so
there are often several generations of related females in this
matriarchal society. Two
or three adult males also live with the females. They are usually
brothers or pride-mates who have formed a coalition to help protect
the females. But they spend only a few years with the pride 
long enough to produce more offspring  before they go out and
seek a new one. However males are usually very affectionate with all
the cubs in the pride, as they have no way of knowing which are
carrying their genes. When adult males return from patrolling the
pride territory, they seem to enjoy the cubs, with lots of licking,
head rubbing and purring.

A crocodile cannot stick out
its tongue.

A dragonfly has a life span of
24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span
of three seconds.

A shark is the only fish that
can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than
its brain.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson reveal, in The
Elephant In The Brain, describe Bowerbirds, a family of 20
species scattered across the forests and shrub lands of Australia and
New Guinea. "What's distinctive about these birds are their
eponymous bowers -- the elaborate structures built by the males of
the species to attract females. Different species build their bowers
in different shapes and sizes. Some are long avenue-like walkways
flanked by walls of vertically placed sticks. Others are more like a
maypole, circular structures propped up against a small sapling.
Perhaps most impressive are the expansive gazebo-like bowers built by
the humble (10-inch long) Vogelkop bowerbird. These structures tower
up to nine feet off the ground, with an opening large enough for a
large human to crawl inside. The zoologists who first encountered
these structures couldn't believe they'd been built by such a tiny
bird, assuming instead that the local villagers had built them for
their children to play in. These bowers serve only a single
purpose: they're built by the males to attract females. Crucially,
they aren't used by the females for laying eggs and raising young.
After mating with a male, the female flies off to build her own (much
smaller) cup-shaped nest up in a tree, and she raises her chicks
entirely on her own, without any help from her mate.

Researchers from Lund
University in Sweden trained ravens to use a simple machine where
they dropped a rock in a tube to earn a food reward. Later, they were
put in a room with the puzzle box (but no rock), which was then
removed. An hour later, the birds were presented with a row of
objects: the rock, and several distractions. Nearly all of them chose
the rock, and 86 percent managed to successfully use it to open the
machine when it was presented to them 15 minutes later. Even more
remarkable is that one
raven in the experiment figured out how to work their rock/box
contraption first, then began teaching the method to other ravens,
and finally invented its own way of doing it. Instead of dropping a
rock to release a treat, the future Ruler of the Raven Kingdom
constructed a layer of twigs in the tube, and pushed another stick
down through the layer to force it open. The bird had to be removed
from the experiment before it could teach any other birds how to do it.

Bees have also been proven to
be smarter than anyone thought. In experiments where bees had to
select numbers on cards in order to obtain food rewards, bees
performed at a level consistent with that of nonhuman primates by
understanding that zero is lower than one.

Similar experiments have shown
that dolphins and parrots understand the concept of zero. But given
that bees have only about one million neurons in their brains,
compared to 86 billion in humans, its especially impressive
that they are such sophisticated mathletes.

There are many instances of interspecies bonding
and interaction. SCARS, a Greek rescue organization, provided the
following example: While
out on a walk near the mountain town Ymitos, Greece, a wonderfully
gallant dog named Aragon led his human directly a box of tiny kittens
who had been abandoned by an unknown person, like so many other
vulnerable animals had before. Luckily, Aragon was with a Second
Chance Animal Rescue Society (SCARS) volunteer who knew exactly what
to do and who to contact. Since that day, Aragon has become their
biggest fan, fostering the little felines and loving them like they
were his very own. The kittens are adorable, playful, healthy and
available for adoption through SCARS. Then
there's the black cat who befriended eight orphaned hedgehog babies.
Keepers at Sadgorod Zoo in Vladivostok, Russia, worried as cubs
refused bottles. But Musya, the zoo's resident cat, still had milk
left after taking care of several foster kittens. The hedgehogs took
to her immediately and she started producing milk for them.

A seminar called
animal-assisted education was offered for the 2016 summer
semester at a German university, teaching students the benefits of
using animals at day care centers, youth centers, and schools, for
example, with regard to the assumption of responsibility and mutual
respect. It may just be a coincidence that Campus cat Fräulein
Sinner has chosen Hildesheim University over shelters and family
homes as her place to live, eat, sleep, and study, and has sat in on
lectures for the past 13 years, since she turned up as a thin,
injured stray.

Hermit crabs rely on shells
to protect their soft abdomens from predators and the elements. They
are always on the lookout for shells that might better suit their
size and situation since, as the video states, To be left
without a shell is a death sentence. Mark Laidre
published a study in 2012
that found that hermit crabs congregate around a smaller hermit
crab, form a conga line smallest to largest, and then
take turns moving into a larger shell.

President John Quincy Adams had
a pet alligator.

National Geographic
photographer Joel Sartore has captured portraits of more than 5,000
creatures to date, with more to come. Photo
Ark is a multiyear National
Geographic project with a simple goal to create portraits of
the worlds species before they disappear and to inspire people
to care. Each image is a visual connection between the animals and
people who can help protect them.

A new book, Ten
Million Aliens: A Journey thought the Entire
Animal Kingdom, contains a wealth of
fascinating facts, especially about the 90% of all living creatures
have no backbone. That means that mammals and vertebrates make up
only a small minority of the animal species.

Researchers in the U.K. have
discovered the strongest biological material ever recordedin a
breed of aquatic snails. Limpets, which are snails with shells that
have no obvious coiling, possess teeth made of goethite, an
iron-based mineral that is threaded into fibers. It is five times
stronger than spider silk and is now deemed the world's strongest
material. "These teeth are made up of very small fibers, put
together in a particular way," the study's lead author Asa
Barber said. "And we should be thinking about making our own
structures following the same design principles."

It seems the octopus has been overlooked until its
genome was decoded recently. It turns out they have the largest
genome of all invertibrates, similar is size to the domestic cat, and
more genes than humans. They have large brains which allow them to
learn and solve puzzles and use tools.

Octopuses, along with cuttlefish and squid, have
far larger, more complex nervous systems than any of their molluscan
relationsor indeed, than any other invertebrates. They have
eight arms, each lined with scores of suckers capable of grasping and
tasting. Octopuses lack bones or an external shell (though they have
a piece of cartilage that protects the brain). As a result, their
bodies are soft, flexible, and stretchyproperties that allow
them to vanish through tiny gaps. A small octopus can easily get
inside an empty beer bottle. And in some species at least, the
animals have an astonishing capacity for camouflage, instantly
changing color, texture, and posture so as to blend in with lumps of
coral on a reef or the blankness of the sand.

Jean Cousteau and his team were the first to spend
a lot of time in the water observing and filming wild octopuses and
getting to know different individuals by visiting them regularly.
Before long, some of the animals would come out to greet the divers,
even climbing onto them and going for a ride. Others were shy, and
would stay in their holes. Some appeared to develop preferences for
particular humans. The divers wanted to know whether octopuses steal
fish from fishermens nets, so they set up a net complete with
several fish, and settled back to watch. Sure enough, an octopus came
and helped itself to the lot. Another octopus opened a jar containing
food, while a third seemed disturbed by its reflection when shown a
mirror. Octopuses have 500 million neurons. This is more than five
times the number in a hamster, and approaches the number in the
common marmoset, a kind of monkey.

Smart animals tend to be long-lived, since a large
brain both takes a long time to grow and helps an animal avoid
danger. Apes, elephants, whales and dolphins, crows and other
corvids, parrots: They all share these traits. Except the octopus.

In just seven years, a single
pair of cats and their offspring could produce a staggering total of
420,000 kittens.

Dr. Elizabeth Devitt, DVM, writing about cat color in www.catchannel.com,
describes the black and white cat as born
to be an ambassador. There is
always a black and white cat in residence at 20 Downing Street,
residence of the British Prime Minister.

An article in Cat
Fancy
about cats predicting earthquakes cited the experience of Simon
Teakettle II (Tiki) just before the huge tsunami which devastated
southeast Asia, which was detected by seismographs on the other side
of the world (including Canada's national capital, where we live). In
the aftermath of that disaster, it was revealed that most coastal
animals left for higher ground hours before the quake causing the
tsunami hit. Now scientists have discovered that a certain species of
toad fled a town in central Italy just before an earthquake struck
there. How many animals in Haiti and Chile predicted the quakes that
hit there recently, or are these areas so quake-prone that the
animals no longer react?

The National Zoo documented
strange behavior in several of its animals in the minutes before the
August 2011 earthquake struck the east coast of the U.S. Five to 10
seconds before the quake, many apes ditched their food and began
climbing their tree-like structure. Flamingos also seemed to know it
was coming, gathering into a group before the shaking began and
remaining huddled throughout the quake. Most impressively, red ruffed
lemurs let out an alarm call 15 minutes before the quake and then
again just before it struck.

Dogs, cats, monkeys, and all
other vertebrates all yawn. The giraffe is the only exception, and
nobody seems to know why.

A giraffe can clean its ears
with its 21-inch tongue.
Giraffes have no vocal chords.
Giraffes don't yawn.
A giraffe has only seven bones in his neck, like all mammals.

Giraffes sleep only 1.9 hours a
day in five- to 10-minute sessions. Koalas, however, are the
longest-sleeping mammals, sleeping up to 22 hours a day.

The giraffe has been added to
the international watch list of threatened and endangered species.
The tallest land animal is now vulnerable to extinction
after its population shrunk about 40 percent in 30 years. In 2015,
there were only about 97,562 giraffes in the world, reports the
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Scientists blame
habitat loss, in part, for the decrease in population.

Only one half of a
dolphins brain goes to sleep at a time. Dolphins are capable of
what is known as unihemispheric sleep, in which one hemisphere of the
brain goes into a deep sleep while the other hemisphere remains
awake. This allows dolphins to sleep under water without drowning.
Dolphins spend approximately one third of their lives asleep.

Inside some whales and
dolphins are small bones that show they once had back legs and that
their ancestors walked on land. These occasionally reappear as tiny
rear flippers.

Bottlenose dolphins develop
an individual vocal label known as their signature whistle, which
they use to broadcast their identity. They have been shown to
remember the signature whistles of other individuals even after 20
years of separation.

The longest living mammal is
the blowhead whale, which can live more than 200 years.

But
the ocean
quahog, a hard shelled clam often found off the coast of New England,
is the longest living animal in the world, often reaching 500 years

Nine out of ten humans are
right-handed. Most animals are closer to ambidextrous than right-or
left-pawed, clawed, etc. Terzo favored his left paw, and so does Penny.

An important difference between wild and domestic
animals is that animals who live with humans have flatter faces, more
range of colors, things like floppy ears and curly tails (to use dogs
as an example). Wolves have larger brains than dogs, which allows
them to have flashes of insight so they can solve problems on their
own. Dogs, on the other hand, rely on humans to solve problems, so
are much better than wolves in noticing and interpreting the gaze and
gestures of humans.

Unlike other animals, wolves have a variety of
distinctive facial expressions they use to communicate and maintain
pack unity.

The Vikings wore wolf skins and drank wolf blood to
take on the wolf's spirit in battle. There were referred to as Berserkers,
which is where that word came from.

The Greeks believed that if someone ate meat lamb
that a wolf had killed, he or she ran a high risk of becoming a vampire.

Under certain conditions, wolves can hear as far as
six miles away in the forest and ten miles on the open tundra.

Animals began to be domesticated about 15,000 years
ago, when agriculture began. Humans no longer had to move around to
follow game, and their settlements produced a lot of garbage, which
attracted animals who had to learn how to co-exist with humans.

Most experts believe humans
domesticated dogs before donkeys, horses, sheep, goats, cattle, cats,
or chickens. Researchers speculate that early dogs crept up to the
human campfire to beg or steal meat. Humans began to share their
bread, so that these early species developed the ability to digest
starches. If wolves had wanted to get human food, they would have
needed to evolve both trusting behaviors and mechanisms for digesting
starch. Dogs, in other words, evolved a mechanism for digesting
starches that wolves dont have.

All dogs can be traced back
40 million years ago to a weasel-like animal called the Miacis which
dwelled in trees and dens. The Miacis later evolved into the
Tomarctus, a direct forbear of the genus Canis, which includes the
wolf and jackal as well as the dog.

As a single species, the
domestic dog embodies one of the largest collections of phenotypic
diversity for any species living on earth.

The shape of a dogs
face suggests how long it will live. Dogs with sharp, pointed faces
that look more like wolves typically live longer. Dogs with very flat
faces, such as bulldogs, often have shorter lives.

During the Middle Ages,
Great Danes and Mastiffs were sometimes suited with armor and spiked
collars to enter a battle or to defend supply caravans.

Dalmatians are completely
white at birth.

Branford, Connecticut, where
Bobbi used to spend summers growing up, began to license dogs in 1908.

The Westminster Dog Show is
the longest-running continuously held sporting event in the country,
second only to the Kentucky Derby. It began in 1877, prior to the
invention of the light bulb or the building of the Washington
Monument. It predates the admission of 12 states to the Union.

The corn fritters known as hush
puppys earned their name because
they were tossed to barking dogs in order to quiet them down.

The Beach Boys song, Shannon,
was written about guitarist/singer, Carl Wilsons Irish Setter.

Police in Queensland, Australia tried their best to
make a tough K-9 cop out of a puppy named Gavel, but the young
German Shepard flunked out of his training program because, as the
BBC reported, instead of tackling hardened criminals, [Gavel]
liked to meet strangers, and police in Australia felt he did
not display the necessary aptitude for a life on the front line. Fortunately,
Gavel found a gig that seems far better suited to his
temperament... he's now the Vice-Regal Dog at Government House in Queensland.

Many animals seem to take on a more juvenile state
as they are domesticated, getting bigger eyes, smaller faces and less
aggressive demeanors. One common way
of achieving a domesticated form of a species might be to slow down
the development of the animal,
Axelsson says. It appears thatits
the development of the nervous system thats affected, gives
some support to this theory.

Some animals possess the
amazing ability to turn white during the winter: the arctic fox,
arctic hare, ptarmigan, barren-ground caribou, and ermine all change
colors as winter approaches, given them protection from predators
in the snow.

Raccoons will back down during
feeding to let a a mother and her cubs eat before any others.

The only two animals that
can see what's behind them without turning their heads are the rabbit
and the parrot.

Four of the five fastest
land animals reside in Africa: the cheetah, the wildebeest, the lion,
and the Thomsons gazelle. All of these animals can run at
speeds above 50 miles per hour, with the cheetah reaching a top speed
of about 70 miles per hour.

The world's fastest land animal, the cheetah, is a successful hunter
not only because it is quick, but also because it can hold an
incredibly still gaze while pursuing prey. For the first time,
researchers have investigated the cheetah's extraordinary sensory
abilities by analyzing the speedy animal's inner ear, an organ that
is essential for maintaining body balance and adapting head posture
during movement in most vertebrates. The study, published in the
journal Scientific Reports and led by researchers at the American
Museum of Natural History, finds that the inner ear of modern
cheetahs is unique and likely evolved relatively recently.
"This distinctive inner ear anatomy reflects enhanced
sensitivity and more rapid responses to head motions, explaining the
cheetah's extraordinary ability to maintain visual stability and to
keep their gaze locked in on prey even during incredibly high-speed
hunting," said coauthor John Flynn, the Frick Curator of Fossil
Mammals in the Museum's Division of Paleontology.
Cheetahs are also typically solitary animals. While males sometimes
live with a small group of brothers from the same litter, females
generally raise cubs by themselves for about a year.

Bridget, a lioness was born
at the Oklahoma City Zoo in 1999, lived a fairly typical zoo lion
life for most of her first 18 years. Then she grew a mane.
Jennifer DAgostino, the zoos director of veterinary services,
thinks it may be an overproduction of testosterone,
the hormone that makes male lions develop manes at around one year
of age. An overproduction of that hormone is also implicated in the
lush locks of wild maned lionesses in Botswanas Okavango Delta.
It's possible that the
lionesses mothers had abnormally high levels of male sex
hormone during pregnancy, he said. Researchers who study the Botswana
maned lionesses say they have never become pregnant, which can be a
consequence of elevated testosterone.

Lions can run up to 50 mph,
but only in a straight line and only for a few seconds at a time.
Consequently, lions get as close as they can to their prey before
they start the chase.

Birds evolved from dinosaurs
and both are descended from reptiles. The closest living reptilian
relation of a bird is the crocodile.

Hummingbirds are the only birds
able to fly backwards. They are also the only
birds that
can hover and even fly upside down. One species of hummingbird
can dive at a rate of sixty-one miles per hour.

The common, or northern,
mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) is well known as a mimic; it has been
known to imitate the songs of 20 or more species within 10 minutes.

According to Nature World Report, birds that ended
up choosing their own mates had 37 percent more offspring than those
that were paired up by humans.

Swiftlet nests are made from
strands of saliva from the male swiftlet bird. Swiftlet nests
collected from Thai caves can fetch more than $900 per pound. It is
one of the worlds most coveted and expensive food items.

There are about 10,000 bird species in the world.
About 925 have been seen in the U.S. and Canada. About 1,000 have
been seen in Europe. By far the largest concentration of bird species
are found in South America. Over 3,200 species have been seen there.

The brains of songbirds and parrots have twice as
many neurons of primate brains of the same mass and two to four times
more neurons that rodent brains of the equivalent mass. Ravens and
kea parrots have 1.2 billion neurons in their cerebral cortex, a
brain area associated with consciousness, more than capuchin monkeys
have. The blue-and-yellow macaw has almost 2 billion neurons in the
cerebral cortex  more than the rhesus macaques found in India
and China.

Birds can mimic complex sounds due to their
fascinating physiology, which is specifically designed for sound.
Parrots are especially tuned into communicating from birth. They
listen closely and recreate sounds from their flock in the wild. In
captivity, the domesticated parrot sees humans as their adopted flock
and will try to speak a common language through mimicry.
Additionally, parrots are uniquely able to move their beaks to help
shape sounds much in the way that humans use their lips.

The crow is actually a large
songbird. Instead of a musical voice, it has more than 20 rough
calls, each of which has a different meaning. Crows have 250 distinct
calls, including two different vocal levels, loud as a public voice,
and a softer voice for "chatting" with family.

The raven is a relative of
the crow, the largest songbird of all, three times larger than a
cardinal. Jays, magpies and nutcrackers also belong to this family.

Research with jays has shown them to have superior
abilities to plan for the future. They will cache food in the place
where they previously found breakfast, in anticipation of needing it then.

Jays, ravens, rooks, and other corvids (as well as
parrots) have a larger neocortex than other birds. Rooks, for
example, will drop rocks into a tube where they can see a tasty worm
just below the reach of their beaks, until the water level rises sufficiently.

A team of researchers in northern Australia has
documented kites and falcons, colloquially termed
firehawks, intentionally carrying burning sticks to
spread fire. While it has long been known that birds will take
advantage of natural fires that cause insects, rodents and reptiles
to flee and thus increase feeding opportunities, that they would
intercede to spread fire to unburned locales is astounding.

Crows can recognize human
faces and tell other crows which humans are friends are which are
enemies. A recent study of crows in captivity suggested that these
birds memorize the faces of the humans who had initially captured
them  and they then warn their crow friends about them.
Even after going for a year without seeing the threatening
human, the crows would scold the person on sight, cackling, swooping
and dive-bombing in mobs of 30 or more, wrote Stephanie Pappas
in 2011 for LiveScience. And a follow-up study of crows using
brain-imaging technology found that bird brains look a lot like human
brains when it comes to recognizing the faces of people they know.

Crows memorize garbage
routes for best times to find food, and learn from each other. They
mate for life, and babies spend a long time with the family,
learning from parents and older siblings. This exended family helps
the young thrive and learn, and a wider diet helps the brain develop.
Omnivores have to learn how to find and deal with different foods.
Crows learn, for example, the height from which to drop nuts so they
will crack open but not smash. Social animals have to learn
relationships, which also require more brain power. Like elephants,
crows gather to mark the site where a friend has died.

While waiting to buy a
ticket at the Kinshicho Station in Tokyo, Yuzu resident Kinoshita
Shoji captured very amusing footage of a clever crow hopping from one
self-service machine to another, trying to figure out how to purchase
a ticket. After watching the humans for a while, the wily bird stole
a credit card from an unsuspecting commuter, but was unable to figure
out how to put the card in the machine. The bird then very politely
returned the credit card to the commuter upon her request.

Only elephants and chimps
actually make tools. Crows make hooks, which chimps don't do. A crow
will use a short stick to retrieve a longer stick that can reach the food.

The mother who gives birth to
the largest baby on Earth is a mother elephant. After enduring 22
months of pregnancy, she gives birth to a blind, 200-pound calf. A
mother orangutan never puts her babies down and typically nurses them
for 6 or 7 years, which is the longest mother/child nursing
dependence of any animal on Earth.

Researchers analyzing footage of chimpanzees at
Burgers Zoo in the Netherlands aggressively attacking a drone
say the primates planned their actions in advance and werent
acting out of fear. The group of chimps noticed the drone during a
preliminary flyby and immediately grabbed twigs and long sticks
before climbing to the treetops. When the drone returned, they were
prepared. The use of the stick as a weapon in this context was
a unique action, study author Jan van Hooff, a primatologist
with life-long ties to the zoo, said in a statement. It seemed
deliberate, given the decision to collect it and carry it to a place
where the drone might be attacked. The primates have not been
taught to use tools, but have learned 13 unique skills by observing
humans visiting the zoo.

There are 220 species of
owls in the world. Owls can almost turn their heads all the way
around, but it's not quite a 360 turn. They can turn their necks 135
degrees in either direction, which gives them 270 degrees total
movement. Owls are able to turn their heads without injury or
cutting off blood to their brain because they have a blood-pooling
system that powers their brain and eyes during a dramatic neck twist.
An owl's eyes are so well-developed that they are not balls but
rather tubes that are held into place by a bony structure. This means
an owl can only look straight ahead. An owl must turn its head to
look side to side. Owls ears are placed asymmetrically and are
different sizes. This allows them to receive sounds at different
times and pinpoint the exact location of the sound.

Parakeets are enjoying a
population explosion in London suburbs, devouring seed from feeders,
fighting with native birds, and possibly threatening crops. No one
knows why the parakeets have flourished. Possible reasons include
residents putting out more food for them, planting berries they like
to eat, the death of a predator, or climate change. Or it could be
simply that once there are enough parakeets, its easier for
them to find mates, and they breed faster. In any case, the
government is keeping an eye on them lest they begin to ravage crops
as they do in India. I was delighted when I first saw one in my
yard, but when you have a flock of 300, its a different
matter, said Dick Hayden, a retiree volunteering to help take a
census of Londons parakeet population. They eat all the
berries. They ate all the food from my feeder in one day; it was ludicrous.

Penguins can identify the
scent of close relatives, as well as their mates. This means they can
reunite with their life partners (yes, they're among the birds who
mate for life) in crowded colonies.

There are 18 different kinds
of penguins.

You can't tell a penguin's sex
even by examining them closely. The only way to tell is by DNA testing.

The Thing with Feathers: The
Surprising Lives of Birds and What They Reveal About Being Human is
a fascinating book by Noah
Strycker. One
of the things he says about certain birds who seem to be able to
find their way across long distances is: To
be able to find their way home from an unfamiliar place, birds must
carry a figurative map and compass in their brains. The map tells
them where they are, and the compass tells them which direction to
fly, even when they are released with no frame of reference to their
loft. Researchers have gone to great lengths to confirm that pigeons
don't merely memorize their outward trip. In one experiment, birds
were transported in sealed containers filled with purified air,
mounted on tilting turntables between coils that varied the magnetic
field, and exposed to loud noises and flashes of light, so that,
unlike a blindfolded person in the backseat of a taxi who might
remember the twists and turns of the journey, they had no external
cues. In another study, pigeons were anesthetized and unconscious
during the outward trip. They still made it home, proving the
existence of an intrinsic map and compass system.

While the ostrich lays the
largest eggs on land, the whale shark lays the largest eggs in the
world. An egg from a whale shark measuring 14 inches in diameter was
found in the Gulf of Mexico in 1953.

Abraham Lincoln had two goats
named Nanny and Nanko, and they often slept in his son Tads bed.

Researchers at the Life
Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University in China recently
discovered that the endangered giant panda has a potent antimicrobial
compound in its bloodstream. Known as cathelicidin-AM, the compound
can kill a wide range of bacteria, including those that are resistant
to antibiotics. According to the Daily Telegraph, cathelicidin-AM was
able to kill bacteria in less than an hour  five hours faster
than other widely used antibiotics. The discovery may lead to
increased interest in preserving the population of wild pandas. There
are about 1,600 left in the wild, and more than 300 pandas live in
zoos and breeding centers around the world, mostly in China. And for
those worried that this scientific breakthrough will lead to pandas
being killed for their amazing antibiotic blood: fear not. The
compound can be manufactured synthetically in the laboratory.

Nine out of every 10
living things live in the ocean. But scientists have explored only 1%
of the ocean depths. They believe millions of new kinds of animals
and fish are down there, waiting to be discovered.

A starfish uses its arms to
force open shellfish, turns its stomach inside out onto the prey, and
ingests it.

Out of about 33,000 species of
fish, 2,500
are venomous.

Researchers have successfully
taught goldfish to play fetch, push levers, do the limbo, and even
play soccer. If they are fed around the same time of day, they also
remember that and will anticipate the feeding leading up to that
time, which implies they have a very good sense of time. Goldfish
also have been shown to be able to recognize their masters and even
pick their favorites (usually the one who feeds them). Around certain
people the goldfish is very familiar with, they will often be much
more active when they see the person. them. Around strangers, on the
other hand, the goldfish will often hide. Blind goldfish also exhibit
this same type of behavior, except they respond to the voice of their
owner, similarly to how the non-blind goldfish respond to the sight
of their owner.

A male emperor angelfish lives
together with up to five female mates. If the emperor angelfish dies,
one of the females turns into a male fish and becomes the leader of
the group.

The fastest fish is the
sailfish. It can swim as fast as a car travels on the highway.

One of Thailands most
curious creatures is the mudskipper, which is a fish that is capable
of walking on land and climbing trees. It uses its fins to
walk and can absorb oxygen through its skin and lining in
its mouth. It spends most of its time out of the water, eating the
algae in tidal pools.

Unlike most other fish, the
ocean sunfish does not have a tail. A female sunfish can lay 300
million eggs each year. Each egg is smaller than the period at the
end of a sentence.

Since a fishs jaw is not
attached to its skull, many fish can shoot their mouths forward like
a spring to catch startled prey.

Jellyfish are not fish. They
have no eyes and no brain. Some
types grow up to 80 feet long!

Dolphins and humans have many of the same basic
traits: high intelligence, self-awareness, and sophisticated social skills.Some
dolphins can understand as many as 60 words, which can make up 2,000
sentences. They are among the few mammals able to recognize
themselves in a mirror, and one of the few species with cells that
act as bridges between brain areas devoted to cognition and
self-awareness. Dolphins dont have a sense of smell, but they
do have a sense of taste and, like humans, can distinguish between
sweet, sour, bitter, and salty tastes.

Bats and dolphins both use
echolocation­emitting sounds and listening for echoes to help
locate prey­and both went through similar evolutionary changes to
develop it, scientists say in a new study. They found that the two
species, while evolving independently, underwent many of the same
genetic and physical changes, with natural selection strongly
preferring animals with more highly developed echolocation abilities.
Overall, there were 200 genomic regions where dolphins and bats had
similar genetic inventions.

A single bat can eat more than
600 bugs in one hour.

A bat that dies while roosting
will continue to hang upside until something shakes it loose. Most
bats rest, sleep, mate, and give birth upside down.

Whales, dolphins, and
porpoises move through the water by plunging their tails up and down
in a vertical motion. This action distinguishes them from fish, which
move their tails from side to side when swimming.

A female dolphin will assist
in the birth of anothers baby dolphin, and if it is a difficult
birth, the midwife might help pull out the baby. Other
dolphins, including bulls, will swim around the mother during birth
to protect her.

A dolphin can produce whistles
for communication and clicks for sonar at the same time, which would
be like a human speaking in two voices, with two different pitches,
holding two different conversations.

While ancient fishermen used
the meat of whales for food, in the modern era whales were primarily
hunted for oil and whalebone, a term used for the baleen. Whalebone
was used to make corsets, umbrella ribs, handles, and brushes, while
the oil was used for cooking, candle wax and, much later, making margarine.

Scientists in California
believe that audio captured in 1984 was a whale imitating people. In
fact, the whale song sounded so eerily human, divers first thought it
was a human voice. Handlers at the National Marine Mammal Foundation
in San Diego heard mumbling in 1984 coming from a tank that sounded
like folks chatting. An acoustic analysis revealed a beluga whale's
sounds were several octaves lower than typical whale calls.
Scientists think the whale's close proximity to people allowed it to
listen to and mimic human conversation. This research was published
online in Current
Biology.

The eyes of frogs and toads bulge out enabling them
to see in almost all directions. The close their eyes by pulling the
eyeballs deeper into the sockets, which closes the upper and lower
eyelids at the same time. Most species also have a thin, partly clear
inner eyelid attached to the bottom lid. This inner eyelid is called
the nictitating membrane. It can be moved upward when the eyes are
open. It protects the eyes without completely cutting off the vision.

An intoxicated ant will
always fall over on its right side.

Butterflies have been sighted
near the top of the Empire State building, and some species live in
mountain areas at elevations up to 5,500 meters.

Over 3,000 species of mayfly are known worldwide,
grouped into over 400 genera in 42 families. One, calls a
nymph, has a long tail and wings that do not fold flat over the
abdomen. Their delicate four wings are the inspiration for Disney's Tinkerbell.

Austin, Texas is home to the
largest bat colony in North America. Over 1.5 million bats roost
beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake and eat
between 10,000- 30,000 lbs. of insects a night.

Cheetahs are the fastest
land animal and can reach speeds up to 72mph.

The Mongolian pony is the only
animal other than an elephant capable of fending off an attack by a
healthy adult tiger.

Domesticated on the Eurasian steppes before 3500
B.C., horses carried the Huns, the Mongols, and the Pizarro brothers
to victory over the Romans, the Chinese, and the Incas, remaking
ancient cultures into societies dependent on high-speed mobility, and
revolutionizing human transport.

Horses were introduced to American Indians by
Europeans in the early 1500s. As ownership of horses spread, it
created great disruption among Native American tribes, because the
increased need for grazing lands caused an increase in wars among tribes.

Horses are not only intelligent, but they use both
sides of their brains to process information. This may be because
their eyes point to the sides instead of forward. This is why they
sometimes don't appear to see something to the right of them as the
go up the road, but may react to it coming back.

Horses have five highly developed senses: taste,
touch, hearing, smell, and sight. They also have an enigmatic sixth
sense, heightened perception, which is very rare in humans.

Wild horses who live on the Outer Banks of North
Carolina survive hurricanes by huddling together at a large tree with
their backs to the wind.

Like elephants, horses who have positive
experiences with a human never forget that person. Horses also
respond better to two-syllable words than to single syllables.

Elephants communicate in all
sorts of ways. They trumpet, of course, and flap their ears and
rumble at frequencies so low you might feel it, but never hear it.
Their feet and trunks are sensitive enough to pick up vibrations
created by other
elephants
as far as 10 miles away. These messages convey more than the presence
of food or danger. Elephants can tell if the stomper is a friend or a
stranger, and use subtle differences in what each foot feels to
triangulate the location.

When one Asian elephant sees
that another elephant is agitated, scientists have observed that the
calmer one will respond by touching the distressed animal with its
trunk. Ive never heard that vocalization when elephants
are alone, Joshua Plotnik, who led the study, told Discovery.
It may be a signal like, Shshh, its okay, the
sort of sounds a human adult might make to reassure a baby.

Flamingos are pink because
they eat shrimp.

A snail can sleep for three years. Koalas are the longest-sleeping
mammals, sleeping up to 22 hours a day.

A species of earthworm in
Australia grows up to 10 feet in length.

The largest recorded lobster, caught off the coast
of Nova Scotia in 1934, weighed 44.4 pounds and was at least 100
years old, according to scientists.

The largest fish caught with a rod and reel was a
Great White shark. It weighed 2,664 pounds and was almost 17 feet long.

Sharks have been called swimming noses
because their sense of smell is so good (they smell with their
nostrils but dont breath through them). Some sharks can smell
one part of blood in 100 million parts of water and can tell which
direction that smell is coming from.

A woodpecker can peck
twenty times a second.

Dogs have about 10 vocal
sounds; cats have over 100.

Dog nose prints are as
unique as human finger prints and can be used to identify them.

Wild animals are always
fighting or fleeing to survive and that makes it hard for humans to
get close but what if an animal was born with fewer of these neural
crest cells&ldots;that animal would have less adrenaline. It would
probably be less freaked out by humans and it would pas that behavior
on to its offspring. This explains why domesticated dogs are more
likely to have floppy rather than pointed ears, and shorter snouts.

According to Discover
Magazine, dogs and cats have gotten really good at reading people,
albeit in their own peculiar ways. Dogs are easily influenced human
actions or what a new study calls "ostensive cues." These
are the same cues  body language, gazes  an inarticulate
infant picks up on when it's trying to figure out what the world's
all about. Researchers working on this new study figured out that
dogs, true sycophants that they are, make their decisions based on
ostensive cues from people, preferring, in one instance, a plate of
food preferred by a person even in that plate has less food than another.

Cats, however, run a
different game on their doting human companions. In a paper titled,
"The cry embedded in the purr," researchers explain
different purrs cats employ to get people to do things for them.
Certain purrs, they found, sound so urgent, grating, and generally
pitiful that people will do anything  including pouring out
dish after dish of Fancy Feast  to make it stop. The
"solicitation purr" is inharmonic to boot, meaning that
even veteran cat owners who think they know all of their cat's wiles
are susceptible to the distressing sound.

A black Lab in New Zealand
donated blood to a cat. When Macys cat friend, Rory,
accidentally ate rat poison, a bold veterinarian took a drastic
measure to save the cats life. With time working against them,
the vet took a gamble that Macys blood would be a match with Rorys.

Three dogs from First Class
cabins survived the sinking of the Titanic  two Pomeranians and
one Pekingese.

Some scientists believe our relationship with dogs
goes back as far as 100,000 years. One theory says that man and dog
have co-evolved through the centuries in untold ways; one scientist
speculates that we lost our own, keen sense of smell by relying on
the sharper sniff of our beastly hunting partners.

Recent research indicates that the first dogs lived
about 33,000 years ago in Southeast Asia. Using whole genome
sequences from 58 canids (wolf and primitive dog species),
researchers determined that dogs from Southeast Asia have the
greatest genetic diversity compared with populations from other parts
of the world. They also exhibit the most genetic similarity to gray
wolves, long believed to be dogs closest wild ancestor.

In his new book, The
Dog Who Couldn't Stop Loving,
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson considers how a "mutual evolution"
not only impacted dogs, but also the human capacity to love and to
feel empathy for others.

Of the 650 dogs that have
seen active combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 5 percent
suffer from canine PTSD. The symptoms vary from hypervigilance and
increased aggression to extreme timidity. The military is
experimenting with desensitization treatment and anti-anxiety
medication, but about half the dogs will half to be retired from
service. They also stop being able to work.

There are five dog breeds that originated in
Canada. The most famous are the Alaskan sled dog, the Newfoundland
and the Labrador retriever. The Newfoundland dog evolved from the
Tibetan Mastiff, which was crossed with a Viking bear dog in the
first century. The Lab is thought to be descended from dogs abandoned
by European fisherman.

Thirty percent of all
Dalmatians are deaf in one or both ears. Because bulldogs have
extremely short muzzles, many spend their lives fighting suffocation.
Because Chihuahuas have such small skulls, the flow of spinal fluid
can be restricted, causing hydrocephalus, a swelling of the brain.

In 2003, police in Warwickshire , England , opened
a garden shed and found a whimpering, cowering dog. The dog had been
locked in the shed and abandoned. It was dirty and malnourished, and
had quite clearly been abused. In an act of kindness, the police took
the dog, which was a female greyhound, to the Nuneaton Warwickshire
Wildlife Sanctuary. Jasmine started welcoming all animal arrivals at
the sanctuary. It would not matter if it were a puppy, a fox
cub, a rabbit or, any other lost or hurting animal. Jasmine
would just peer into the box or cage and, when and where possible,
deliver a welcoming lick. Jasmine, the timid, abused, deserted waif,
became the animal sanctuary's resident surrogate mother, a role for
which she might have been born. The list of orphaned and abandoned
youngsters she has cared for comprises five fox cubs, four badger
cubs, fifteen chicks, eight guinea pigs, two stray puppies and
fifteen rabbits - and one roe deer fawn. See the full story and
photos at: http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/jasmine.asp

The smallest dog on record
was a matchbox-size Yorkshire Terrier. It was 2.5? tall at the
shoulder; 3.5? from nose tip to tail, and weighed only 4 ounces.

Rin Tin Tin
was part of a litter discovered in 1918 by an American soldier while
serving abroad in World War I. He smuggled the pup into the U.S. from
France, and trained him to jump so high he stood out from the many
other German shepherd then working in Hollywood. His breakthrough
film was Where
the North Begins, based
on a script by Duncan. He turned out to be one of Warner Brothers'
most profitable commodities, and lived to the age of 14.

Helena
Katz lives on an alpaca farm in the NWT. She says that their
livestock dogs have different barks. "One is the doggie doorbell
to let us know someone has pulled into the driveway. One is what we
call the patrol bark because they do it to announce to the
unassembled masses in the bush that they're on duty. They're telling
bears, wolves, foxes and anything else out there to stay away. Then
there's the angry bark they use if a wolf goes by. The dogs tend to
work at night because that's when predators are out, but we don't
usually go check unless we're hearing the angry barking, or the
barking goes on for a bit. Livestock dogs are independent thinkers
because they need to be able to analyze a situation without their
handler telling them what to do. Consequently, we need to walk a fine
line between demanding obedience and giving them enough room to think
for themselves. "

There are several species of
squirrels, including the grey and black, which are actually the same.
They're sociable animals who live near deciduous trees, and we've
hosted a family of black squirrels in our big maple tree for many
years. Their relationship with Simon Teakettle II (Tiki) is on the Cat
Facts page.
For more about squirrels, click HERE.

The Latin name for squirrel is sciurus,
borrowed from the Greek word skiouros,
meaning critter living in the shadow of its tail.

Groundhogs, also known as
woodchucks, are a type of marmot, large rodents related to squirrels.
They have a large habitat, extending throughout most of North
America, from Alaska, as far south as Alabama. In the wild,
groundhogs usually live two to three years, but have been known to
live up to six years. In captivity, they can live much longer. The
original Wiarton Willie - one of Canada's most famous prognosticating
groundhogs - lived to be 22 years old.

Groundhogs are typically
16-26 inches long, and weigh 4-9 pounds. They have 22 teeth and
manage the length of their incisors by actively gnawing on tree bark
and brush. Two coats of fur: a thick, wooly, grey
undercoat and a longer coat of silky brownish hairs, help to keep
them warm throughout the year.

Groundhogs prefer to eat
wild grasses, leaves, berries, and food crops. They will also
occasionally eat nuts, insects, grubs, snails, and other small
animals. The average groundhog moves approximately 710 pounds of dirt
when digging its burrow. Burrows can be up to 46 feet long and up to
5 feet underground. They hibernate during the winter, usually between
October and March or April, depending on the climate.

If in danger, a groundhog
will produce a high-pitched alarm whistle to warn the rest of its
family. This is how they got the nickname "whistle-pig" in
some regions. Other groundhog sounds include squeals, barks, and
tooth grinding.

According to an article in the New
York Times
by Natalie Angier, pigs are better than many other animals at
learning new things. They can perform many tricks, including jump
through hoops, bowing, spinning, and making sounds on command that
mimic words. They can be taught to roll out rugs, herd sheep, close
and open cages, and even to play videogames with joysticks.

A characteristis that beavers share with alligators
and hippos is having their eyes, nose, and ears are all in a line
close to the top of the head. This allows the animal to float with
only the top of the head visible above the water, and still have all
sensory organs fully functional. In addition, beavers can remain
submerged for up to 15 minutes because they can store a lot of oxygen
and also reduce their heart rate.

Beavers take down large trees thanks to the top two
incisors, which anchor the beaver's mouth while huge jaw muscles
power the lower incisors. Only one lower incisor cuts at a time,
which is how they cut trees at an angle.

The hippopotamus is the
third largest land mammal after the elephant and white rhino. A hippo
can live for up to 40 years.

Hippos cant swim or
float. They walk or stand on surfaces below the water like sandbanks,
spending most of the day in water to protect their sensitive skin
from the sun. They secrete an oily red substance that acts as a
moisturiser, sunblock and protects them from germs. This also makes
them look like they are sweating blood.

Although hippos can hold
their breath for approximately seven minutes, most adult hippos
resurface every three to five minutes to breathe. This is an
automatic process  even sleeping hippo surface to breathe
without waking. Hippos can close their nostrils and ears to prevent
water from entering. This is why hippo calves can suckle on land or underwater.

Monogamy, a pair-bond between
a single male and female, is comparatively rare among mammals. Small
songbirds, such as sparrows and warblers, are annually monogamous,
forming new bonds each mating season. Perennially monogamous
animals include: ducks, eagles, geese, swans, gibbons, lynx,
marmosets, mountain lions, wolves, foxes, and beaver.

The prairie vole is
monogamous; it forms long-term pair bonds after mating. But
the montane
vole, is polygamous; it mates and moves on.

Bob & Frances Walker have
built what Publisher's Weekly has called,
the ultimate cat-friendly fantasyland.
See "the Cat House" at their website,
where you can use your mouse to track the cat paths through the
floor plan, buy their books, and take the tour.

The Elephant Listening Project
at Cornell University has classified elephant sounds into distinct
categories. These range from greetings, to protests, to reassurance,
to annoyance, to get
out of my way.
But it turns out these vocalizations are just a tiny fraction of the
sounds elephants make. Bob Simon, a correspondent for 60
Minutes, investigated
this, and
discovered that elephants talk to each other. They communicate in
their own secret language, most of which is inaudible to humans
because it is infrasonic. He also noticed that there's a protocol to
meeting an elephant. He will offer up his trunk and he expects you to
blow into it. That way, he will remember you forever.

New research
indicates that elephants can differentiate between male and female
voices, and between languages used by different tribes. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences studied hundreds of wild
elephants in Kenya, and discovered that the elephants reacted
differently to the same phrase said in two different languages. They
reacted defensively to the Masai, who often kill them, whereas when
they heard voices of Kamba men, who are less threatening, they didn't react.

Elephants are terrified of
bees and actually have a special, distinct vocalization for Run
away the bees are angry.

Elephants have a unique way of walking. Recent
research indicates that they move each leg independently. Cats walk
by moving their front and back legs on one side, then the other side.
That is, the right hind leg moves forward, then the right foreleg;
then the sequence is repeated on the left side. Only camels and
giraffes move in the same way. Also, cats can rotate their front legs
back and forth at a much greater range than other mammals. The
elephant is the only animal with 4 knees.

An elephants trunk is extremely complex and
sensitive, capable of performing delicate functions like picking up a
coin from a flat surface or cracking open a peanut, blowing away the
shell, and putting the kernel in its mouth. The trunk
contains 40,000 muscles, but no bones.

Elephants are able to
read the visual cue of pointing, picking the right bucket two thirds
of the time­a slightly better rate than a 1-year-old human. The
scientists say pointing could be a social thing, since elephants live
in packs that require cooperation and communication,
and it's logical they'd used their flexible trunks for that.

The longest gestation period of any mammal is the
elephant, at 22 months.

The Elephant Company,
The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero
and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II, by Vicki
Constantine Croke, describes the
Japanese occupation of Myanmar, then known as Burma, when Lt. Col.
James Howard Williams and his
company of elephants helped build bridges and evacuate refugees.

The book contains many additional facts
about elephants. Their sense of smell
is five times that of a bloodhound. They have six sets of teeth
throughout their lives that move into place not from
underneath, but as if moved forward along on a slow conveyor
belt, and once theyve used up their sixth set, they
starve to death.

From The Memory of an Elephant: An Unforgettable Journey:
An elephant sleeps very little at night, "usually standing,
always on alert," and takes standing naps throughout the day. An
adult elephant needs to drink 30 gallons of water a day and eat
between 220 and 440 pounds of food depending on the season. Elephants
can't jump and must have one foot on the ground at all times, and
despite an enormous weight of about five tons, an elephant makes no
noise while walking.

White lions are very rare. A
female white lion cub, just a week old and yet to be named, made her
debut recently at the Belgrade Zoo in Serbia. She weighs 2.8 pounds
and traces her roots back to South Africa, where her mother, Masha, originated.

As herds of African lions
wait for their prey, the oldest and weakest, no longer capable
hunters, take their place in the tall grass and when the herd passes
by, they roar. This sends the herds in the opposite direction, into
the waiting pack of young lions.

A tiger's stripes are completely unique to each
tiger. Tigers have the longest life span of all the big cats,
and can live to up to 26 years in the wild. There are five different
species of tiger - Siberian, Indochinese, South Chinese, Bengal and Sumatran.

The leopard is the most widespread of all the big
cats. Leopards are so strong they can climb up a treecarrying
prey twice their weight in their jaws.

Big cats have an acute sense of hearing and a
mother cat can hear one of her cubs crying from anything up to a mile away.

The blue whale can produce
sounds up to 188 decibels. This is the loudest sound produced
by a living animal and has been detected as far away as 530 miles.

Penguins can jump as high as six feet.

The Venezuelan brown bat can detect and dodge
individual raindrops in mid-flight, arriving safely back at his cave
completely dry.

Most people have more than
1,460 dreams every year. Animals also dream, although it's hard to
tell what these contain. Simon II (Tiki), however, was a rescued
feral kitten, and often had dreams that disturbed his sleep
sufficiently to cause him to twitch as if he was trying to escape
from something frightening. Terzo's naps, on the other hand, are
always tranquil.

There are 37 species of cats.

The nine lives
attributed to cats is probably due to their having nine primary whiskers.

Camelids are a species of two-hoofed mammals
related to the camel and the dromedary. They include the llama, which
is quite a bit taller than the alpaca. They hum when they congregate,
and hiss and spit when they get into fights. See Brinks, who
made it into the calendar put out by the Fort Smith Animal Shelter in
the NWT, in Terzo's blog (August 13).

An African grey parrot named
Alex was trained by scientist Irene Pepperberg to count, recognize
shapes and colors, and identify different textures like wool, wood,
and paper. Before he died, he had mastered more than 100 English
words. Pepperberg has described her experiments in a book called Alex
& Me, published by Harper Collins.

A parrot in Japan who
escaped from his cage was brought to a veterinary hospital, where he
told the staff his name and address. Im Mr. Yosuke
Nakamura, the bird told the veterinarian. The parrot also
provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even
entertained the hospital staff by singing songs. The Nakamura family
told police they had been teaching the bird its name and address for
about two years.

On average, a 4-year-old
child asks 437 questions a day. Cats and grey parrots probably have
just as many questions, but can't find the words to express them!

After observing the Kanyawara group of chimpanzees
in Kibale National Park in Uganda for more than a decade, researchers
have concluded that differences in their play behavior may be
gender-driven. Over a hundred instances of young female chimpanzees
playing with sticks as though they were dolls were observed over the
years. This sort of behavior was very rarely observed in young males.
They typically used sticks as weapons, shaking them to intimidate playmates.

Apes originated on Earth
about 35 million years ago, and the first apelike men appeared about
10 million years ago. The modern human species of Homo sapien has
existed on the earth for only 100,000 years.

The Barbary macaque population in Gibraltar is the
only wild monkey population in the European continent, having
been brought from North Africa by the Moors,
who occupied southern Iberia, including
Spain and Portugal, between 711 and 1492), who kept them as pets. Smaller
than most other apes, this species resemble monkeys, but don't have tails.

Gibraltar's barbary macaque population was under
the care of the British Army and later the Gibraltar Regiment from
1915 to 1991, who carefully controlled a population that initially
consisted of a single troop. An officer was appointed to supervise
their welfare, and a food allowance of fruit, vegetables and nuts was
included in the budget. Births were gazetted in true military
fashion, and each new arrival was named. They were named after
governors, brigadiers and high-ranking officers.

However, since the Barbary apes
are one of the top tourist attractions
in Gibraltar, a few myths have sprung
up, including that they're all named after members of the Royal Family.
Tourists are also told the macaques
were brought to Gibraltar by the Royal Navy in 1704, although they
actually existed in the region long before that.

Humans share more
similarities with orangutans than with chimpanzees. Researchers have
identified 28 anatomical characteristics they share, a 98% genetic
match, compared to a 97% match with the gorilla.

Chimpanzees freak out when
one chimp gets more than his fair share, so zookeepers are careful
about food portions. Chimps are hardwired to get angry when they
think theyve been cheated.

The bonobo, a pygmy
chimpanzee, appears to use whats akin to human baby talk. The
closest relatives to humans have started to make a series of sounds
that parallel those of human babies before they begin to learn
language, according to new research from a psychologist at the
University of Birmingham. The study analyzed the sounds of bonobos in
the Congo forest and discovered that they made different noises based
on positive, negative, or neutral stimuli. The chimps had to
interpret their own sounds in different contexts, which suggests a
potential origin for human language.

Georgia State University researchers have concluded
that chimpanzees can communicate with meaningful gestures. During an
experiment, two language-trained chimps used meaningful clues to help
human researchers find hidden food. Researchers also noticed that the
chimps use directional gestures. The studys findings may
provide clues about the basics of language development.

Recent research indicates that the reason why
chimps can't speak has to do with a single gene that has two extra
amino acids in humans. When this gene mutates, humans have difficulty
with language. Evidently this gene doesn't function well in chimps.
That may mean that chimps have the ability to compose rational
thoughts, just not the means to express them, except by gestures,
actions, and vocal sounds.

Could this be the case in other animals as well?
Maybe those of us who think our cats, dogs, horses, parrots, and
other domesticated animals (including the very intelligent pig) have
the ability to form complex thoughts are not so silly after all.

Recent brain scans of dogs showed areas of their
brains lighting up when their trainers used hand signals. There was
little reaction to verbal commands.

Helena Katz lives on an alpaca
farm in the NWT. She says that their livestock dogs have different
barks. "One is the doggie doorbell to let us know someone has
pulled into the driveway. One is what we call the patrol bark because
they do it to announce to the unassembled masses in the bush that
they're on duty. They're telling bears, wolves, foxes and anything
else out there to stay away. Then there's the angry bark they use if
a wolf goes by. The dogs tend to work at night because that's when
predators are out, but we don't usually go check unless we're hearing
the angry barking, or the barking goes on for a bit. Livestock dogs
are independent thinkers because they need to be able to analyze a
situation without their handler telling them what to do.
Consequently, we need to walk a fine line between demanding obedience
and giving them enough room to think for themselves. "Most of us
had heard of the famous lowland gorilla, Koko, who was taught
American Sign Language when she was about a year old. There were many
stories about how she adopted a kitten. Now, at 40 years old, she has
a working vocabulary of more than 1000 signs and understands about
2000 words of spoken English. Most remarkable is that she is always
learning, and creates signs for new things in her environment. She
often strings signs together to express something new, so that a hair
brush became scratch comb,
and a ring became a finger
bracelet.

Zoo animals know when their
day starts and ends, they line up ready to go on exhibit in the
morning, they get tired and ready to get off exhibit at night. I
observed a lot of this, and realized I hadnt thought a lot
about animal jobs. I began to wonder what would happen if we took
these working creatures and tried to entertain them instead of
forcing them to entertain us all the time. An animal's life can be
enriched by giving them opportunities to learn and things to do.

Hyenas communicate clues about their social rank in
the "laughing" sounds they make. Pitch reveals age,
and the "notes" and their frequency denote whether the
hyena is dominant or submissive. They can call each other for help in
hunting or defending their food from lions.

Scientists have identified more
than 800 genes in the zebra finch that reveal the tiny birds learn to
sing in a similar way to how human babies learn to speak. There's a
possibility that this might lead to finding genetic components
related to human speech disorders, such as autism and stuttering.

Finches are known for their
fine singing voices. German criminals called snitches
"finks" because they were prone to "singing like a
bird" to police. The word followed German and German Jewish
immigrants to America where it became part of our everyday
vocabulary, primarily through films, tv and radio.

Many animals have what appear to be human-like
impulses in their brain's higher centers. Researchers have identified
seven basic emotional drives common to both humans and mammals in
sections of the mid-brain called the PAG (periaqueductal gray). These
include basic emotions, such as fear, rage, lust, and
separation-distress, but also the desire to nurture and be nurtured,
the drive to play, grief, despair, sadness, and joy. Some examples
include elephants, who keep vigil over the dead, and have been known
to collect the scattered bones of the dead family and friends.

Species from magpies to elephants can recognize
themselves in the mirror, which some scientists consider a sign of self-awareness.

In a basic numeracy test,
long-tailed macaque monkeys were able to understand relative
quantities and to point out which of two plates contained more
pebbles. Researchers initially performed the test using raisins,
which the monkeys would then be fed as a reward; however, the
monkeys impulsive desire to eat the raisins impaired their
judgment, and they frequently chose wrong on that test. Once
researchers swapped out the raisins for inedible items, the monkeys
were able to successfully complete the task.

Capuchin monkeys use
different vocal sounds to identify different types of predators. They
have also been seen banging stones together to warn each other of
approaching predators.

South American Titi monkeys
are rare among primates because they are monogamous. They mate for
life and become distressed when separated. They show affection by
remaining close, grooming each other, intertwining their tails,
holding hands, nuzzling, cuddling, and lip smacking.

Some grey parrots are as smart as a five-year-old
child. A grey parrot who shares a birthday with Terzo (Simon
Teakettle III) is Mrs. Doyle. Read about her on Terzo's blog.

From The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us,
by Diane Ackerman: "We
used to think that wall-climbing geckos must have suckers on the
soles of their feet. But in 2002, biologists at Lewis & Clark
College in Portland, Orgeon, and the University of California at
Berkeley released their strange findings, and science was agog.
Viewed at the nano level, a gecko's five-toed feet are covered in a
series of ridges, the ridges are tufted with billions of tiny tubular
elastic hairs, and the hairs bear even tinier spatula-shaped boots.
The natural force between atoms and molecules is enough to stick the
spatulas to the surface of most anything. And the toes are
self-cleaning. As a gecko relaxes a toe and begins to step, the dirt
slides off and the gecko steps out of it. No grooming required.

There are more insects in one
square mile of rural land there are humans in the entire world.

An intoxicated ant will always
fall over on its right side.

Kermit the Frog is left-handed.

Alligators are blackish/gray
with a rounded snout and teeth that are not readily
visible. They
live in fresh water and are less
aggressive than crocodiles.

Crocodiles are olivegreen/brown
with a sharp snout and visible teeth. They're more aggressive and
live in salt water.

South Florida is the only place in the world where
alligators and crocodiles coexist in the wild.

Bears are three-gaited,
meaning they walk, lope or gallop. It has been reported that a
grizzly bear can run nearly as fast as a horse (33-34 mph) for a
distance of 50 to 100 yards. This is definitely faster than a human
being. The lope, slower than the gallop, is an easy, ground-covering,
bounding gait that does not seem to tire the bear and can be
maintained for a long time.

Bears have been known to eat
almost anything, including snowmobile seats, engine oil, and rubber boots.

A swimming polar bear can jump
8 ft. (2.4 m) out of the water to surprise a seal.

Bears, seals, and dogs are
closely related carnivores but are on a different branch of the
evolutionary tree than cats and hyenas.

The black bear is not a color
but a species. The North American black bear can
be a variety of colors, and although black is dominant, other
colors, such as shades of brown, can turn up no matter what color the
mother is.

Elk or wapiti are one of the largest species in the
deer family. But moose are larger. The
North American male moose can weigh more than 700 kilograms and stand
up to 2.1 metres tall. Caribou are smaller, rarely exceed 300 k and
1.5 m at shoulder height. Unlike moose, both male and female caribou
grow antlers.

Antlers are usually found only on male members of
the deer family. Only reindeer (known as Caribou in North America)
are the only females to have antlers, and these are normally smaller
than those of the males. Male reindeer shed their antlers prior to
winter, while female antlers are retained throughout the winter
months. In most arctic and temperate-zone species, antler growth and
shedding is annual, and is controlled by the length of daylight.
Although the antlers are regrown each year, their size varies with
the age of the animal in many species, increasing annually over
several years before reaching maximum size.

Male and female reindeer antlers differ in several
respects. Males shed their antlers prior to winter, while female
antlers are retained throughout winter.

Mules are reputed to be more patient, hardy and
long-lived than horses and are described as less obstinate and more
intelligent than donkeys.

A zedonk is
a cross
between a donkey and a zebra.

The American
buffalo are actually bison. The only true buffalo
are the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo.

Cows always face directly
north or south while eating.

Swiss biologists determined that stupid flies live
longer than smart flies because intelligence wears out flies' brains.
Canadian researchers claim that straining to recall information which
seems to be on the tip of my tongue makes us learn
mistaken guesses instead of the correct answers we may (or may not)
eventually remember. (source: Harper's)

One in two mammal species on
Earth are in decline and at least one in four are at risk of
disappearing forever, according to a scientific survey which
described the trend as an "extinction crisis in the making."

James Spratt, an Ohio electrician, who had gone to
England to sell lightning rods in 1860, saw British dogs being
fed old ship biscuits, and thought he could make a better biscuit.
His formulation, based on guesswork, not science, succeeded and he
soon had a thriving business among English gentlemen who owned
sporting dogs. In 1890 the company went public and came to the US.
Thus, an American lightning rod salesman started the entire pet food
business. (written by Barbara Moss, www.barbcat.myweb.com/myweb/)

According to a recent survey:Dog people: 15% more likely to be extroverts; cat
people: 11% more likely to be introverts. Dog people: 30% more likely to enjoy slapstick
humor and impressions; cat people: 21% more likely to enjoy ironic
humor and puns.Dog people: 67% more likely to call animal control
if they happen upon stray kittens; Cat people: 21% more likely to try
to rescue stray kittens.Dog people: 11% more likely to say they'd support
cloning, but only for animals or pets; Cat people: 17% more likely to
have completed a graduate degree.Both dog and cat people: talk to animals of all
kinds, are equally likely to have a four-year degree, and dislike
animal-print clothing.

A leveret is a young hare, especially one that is
less than a year old.A polliwog is a young frog or tadpole that has not
yet grown legs.A smolt is a young salmon in the midst of its first
migration from fresh water into the sea. A shoat is a young pig that has recently been
weaned off of its mother's milk and onto solid food.The word spat refers to the spawn of an oyster or
similar shellfish. An eyas is a young nestling hawk or falcon.A whelp is the young of a tiger, lion, wolf, bear,
or dog.